


The Orquenta

by Gileonnen



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Chemical warfare, Elves with Kanteles, Fraught Family Reunions, Gen, Kinslaying, M/M, Monstrous Transformations, Orcs, Oromë Gives Excellent Advice
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-19
Updated: 2015-09-19
Packaged: 2018-04-21 12:43:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4829591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gileonnen/pseuds/Gileonnen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which is recounted how Fingon went not to rescue his cousin Maedhros, but instead descended alone into the fastness of Thangorodrim.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Orquenta

**Author's Note:**

> At this stage in their resettlement of Middle-earth, it's unlikely that the Noldor would have been using Sindarinized names to refer to one another. However, those are the names used most often in the source text, and thus, the most familiar names to readers. I have therefore elected to use Sindarinized names throughout, even recognizing that they're a bit anachronistic. Many thanks to [hellscabanaboy](http://archiveofourown.org/users/hellscabanaboy/pseuds/hellscabanaboy) for encouragement/enabling.

On the night that Fingolfin’s three children set off for the northern shore, the moon rode high over the Mountains of Shadow. In its stark silver light, the trees gleamed like ill-wrought iron. A bitter wind swept down from the peaks, laden with ash and the stench of sulfur. Thick skeins of mist spilled across the lake's mirror-black surface and curled around Fingon's oars as though they were distaffs.

"Is he still watching us?" Aredhel called toward the stern. Her oars dipped in time with Fingon's, shattering the reflected moon again and again as they pulled for the shore.

"The rest have come to join him," said Turgon, who alone sat facing the north. "Celegorm has his spear, and two of them have bows."

"Strung?" asked Fingon.

"Not yet."

Fingon threw a swift glance behind him. A glittering spill of sentry fires lay over the bald hill where their cousins' folk had raised a fortress, among soaring walls and red banners emblazoned with Fëanor's flaming wheel. On the shoreline, five figures stood vigil--but their bows were unstrung, and Celegorm leaned upon his spear as though it were a walking stick. "Then perhaps we can still expect some kind of welcome."

After that, there was only the sound of Mithrim's waters sluicing along their hull, the splash of oars and the faint silvery music of the ornaments in Aredhel's hair. Their own camp lay far astern, its lamps veiled by the heavy mist over the lake. In the shadowed nook beneath the boat's high, curling stern, Turgon sat watching the approaching shore. His eyes shone in the moonlight. Whatever he saw on the shoreline, Turgon kept his own counsel, as he had since Fingon had proposed this mad scheme.

In the light of day, on the far side of the lake, it had not seemed half so mad. Fingon had let himself spin a fable of how their two families would march upon Angband together, and there would be no division among them. He'd spoken of banners red and gold and blue, of a thousand silver blades raised against the blackened sky, and Aredhel had embellished the tale with praise of Curufin's wit and Celegorm's steady arm. Together, they would harrow every hidden prison beneath Thangorodrim, until there was no place in that fastness that the light did not touch. While the sun spangled Lake Mithrim's waters with flecks of gold, that dream had shivered on the edge of becoming real--and when he'd left the far shore, hope had still lain within him like a light. If the sons of Fëanor would not come for honor, nor even to save their brother at Fingon's side, then they might come all the same for the vengeance that their oath demanded.

But now, as the five of them stood ranged upon the shore, a sliver of cold fear lodged beneath his breastbone. He was not afraid that they would strike him down like a trespasser, although his shoulder blades itched at the thought of Celegorm's spear. More than any mortal blow, he feared that his cousins would turn him aside unheard.

By now, Fingon thought, they must be close enough to hear bows being bent.

A tangle of weeds caught on one of Aredhel's paddles. She lifted the oar to shake the leafy mass clear, but did not miss her stroke with the free paddle; caught between stillness and the scull, the boat went turning in a lazy arc that brought the northern bank into view at last.

Curufin stood so near to the lake that each gentle wave lapped at the tips of his boots. He had always been slender, but now he was slim as a duelist's blade, and he wore his once-long hair shorn to his chin. His brothers were ranged behind him like shadows, all of them veiled against the foul vapors of Thangorodrim. Celegorm kept one arm hooked around his spear and Amras stood with his bow resting loosely in one hand, but they held themselves as though in abeyance while Curufin passed judgment.

The burden of judging seemed to weigh heavily on him. Curufin alone left his nose and mouth uncovered, but his bare face revealed even less than his brothers' masks. His expression was hard and shuttered, and the moon drew deep hollows beneath his brows. In Valinor, he had been the image of his father, quicksilver and clever and suspicious of good fortune and ill; on this midnight shore, though, the set of his jaw said that he had seen only ill.

Curufin held the second bow, but if he'd meant to string it, he would have done so long ago. At length, he called across the water, "You come unlooked-for, kinsmen."

The shore lay close enough that Fingon could halt the spin of the boat with an oar thrust in the soft lakebed. A choking reek of rotten weeds rose from the water. "Do we come unwelcome?" he asked.

"Unless you bring news of an alliance--" Curufin began, but he got no further before Aredhel tossed her oars to the bottom of the boat and shouted, "Oh, hang your alliances, Curvo! I came to see my cousins, not to talk of war!"

Then she was leaping from the boat like a swan, skirts gathered up as she splashed through the shallows. Her white legs were caked in mud when she gained the banks, but she seemed to care not at all about the filth or the smell. In a flutter of white skirts and jingling silver bells, Aredhel threw her arms about Curufin's neck with enough force to knock him back two paces.

There came a pause in which Celegorm stifled a snicker against his fist, and Caranthir's eyes crinkled with threatened laughter. Eventually Maglor asked, "Is anyone else planning to jump in the water?"

"We'll climb out closer to shore," said Fingon, smiling with equal parts gladness and relief. His cousins did not look so dreadful, with Aredhel among them.

Fingon poled them close enough for his cousins to hook the boat and drag it onto the strand, which they did between snatches of song. They offered their hands to help Fingon and his brother to their feet, exclaiming over their fine clothes and their well-dressed hair and the leathern case on Turgon's back. "A harp case," Maglor guessed, "but for no harp I've ever seen."

"Have you come to see us dance, then?" Celegorm asked, drawing Aredhel from Curufin so that he could kiss her brow and embrace her. "You'll find precious little dancing in Hithlum, sweet cousins! You should have brought swords instead. We could have used you, then."

"This is a gift from Finrod, since he could not come himself," said Turgon placidly.

"Wouldn't come, you mean," said Maglor, but he took the case when Turgon offered. His quick fingers unfastened clasps and catches until he'd freed the harp therein. He frowned, though, when his gaze fell upon an instrument wrought of gleaming bone and horsehair.

The crossing at the Helcaraxë had not been kind to wooden harps strung with gut--but still the Noldor had longed for music, more keenly than for food or warmth. In that night unending, Finrod had fashioned a harp from a fish's jaw and plucked it with a silver scale, and he had sung the names of all of Varda's stars--and many who would have perished with despair instead harkened to his songs, and went on.

Maglor closed the case and did up the clasps again. "I know not what insult Finrod meant by this gift. Was it to our craftsmanship? My music? Next time, he must send a message to explain it."

Turgon's eyes flashed, but he said only, "If our cousin had given me such a gift, I would esteem it above every treasure we brought with us from Valinor. Above even your father's Silmarilli."

"Then you may have it, to esteem as you like. As my brother says, we have little cause to dance in Hithlum." Maglor pressed the case back into Turgon's hands, with a look that might have been pity or regret.

A winding path led from the lake shore to the fortress on the hill, paved in some places and carved from the bare earth in others. Here and there, Fingon saw sign that these slopes had once been cloaked in trees: a twisted root in a tumble of broken rock, a straggling wisp of white pine sheltering in a crevice off the path. He reached out to touch a frond of pine needles and found them brittle under his fingers. They, too, would soon be swept from the hillside, either by Morgoth's pestilent vapors or by the hands of his cousins' craftsmen.

"You must think us much fallen from our old glory," rumbled Caranthir as they picked their way over a rough-hewn switchback still marked with stonecutters' guidelines. "There was a time when we would have reared a new Tirion upon this hillside--a city to shame Tirion!"

"I think you are a people at war," Fingon answered. "None of us would expect you to shame Tirion in the very shadow of Thangorodrim! You've preserved the greater part of your people, which is itself a triumph."

"But not the greatest of our people," said Maglor, for which Fingon had no answer.

From further down the slope came Aredhel's clear, sweet voice, punctuated by a laugh from Celegorm or a low reply from Curufin. Against her mud-streaked radiance, the two of them looked rough and ill-used, both clad in coats lined with fur and Celegorm veiled like a bandit. And yet she walked between them as though she belonged there--as though she had toiled across the ice for long, dark years for no other reason than to return to her accustomed place at their side. When Aredhel caught Celegorm's hand and gestured him toward some point south of the lake, or when Curufin leaned in to catch a whispered joke, the sight of their easy intimacy pricked Fingon's heart. He, too, had once had a friend as dear.

Perhaps, on those days when her wanderlust was keen and the sun drove away the worst of the choking fog, she rode the long, shadowed path from her father's camp to her cousins'. Fingon almost hoped that she did, and that she and Celegorm still hunted together as they had in the bliss of Valinor. 

"--and there was Oromë riding alongside our host like a great wind, winding his horn fit to shatter the sky. Oh, for the hunts of old!" Aredhel tossed her head back with a laugh and a chime of silver beads, fixing her eyes on the stars overhead. Her pale face was alight with remembered joy. "Sometimes, I almost think that I hear the Valaróma ringing in these cheerless hills, and it makes my spirit glad to hear it."

"You do hear the Valaróma," said Amras, who until that moment had said not a word. He had paced at the rear of the train, eyes fixed on the trail below, as though he alone remembered that his cousins were not the only threat in Hithlum. Between the shore and the steeps, he had strung his bow. "In all the world, there's no other horn like it. The _orqui_ flee before it, and even Morgoth trembles in his tower when he hears it. Oromë may shun us now, but he hasn't abandoned us."

A shadow passed over Celegorm's face, but he said nothing. Instead he shifted his spear from his shoulder to his side, measuring out a space before and behind him.

There were no snatches of song now. The night seemed darker for it.

"Did you come to prick all of our old griefs, then?" Maglor asked. He laughed without mirth, a cold sound like flint striking steel. "You'll find them newer and tenderer than you supposed."

In the face of that laugh, Fingon found he could no longer pretend that he had come to hear Turgon play the harp and Aredhel talk of hunting. "Newer, tenderer, and more numerous," said Fingon. "It seems we cannot speak without stirring some unseen sorrow. Therefore, let's speak of our sorrows and how they can be remedied."

"Remedied! I know your father's remedy all too well. As though Morgoth is a wound that will heal if only we leave it alone," snarled Caranthir. At the knell of that name, all eight of them looked to the northeast. Even from this vantage, the Mountains of Shadow hid Thangorodrim's three wicked peaks, but an unceasing boil of smoke and ash choked the horizon.

"I do not intend to sit idle while Morgoth's shadow grows," said Fingon. "Now is the time to strike, while the _orqui_ still cringe away from the sun! My father's host broke itself once on the gates of Angband, but with the full power of both our forces--"

"He does come to talk of alliances!" Maglor crowed. "Do you hear that, Curufin? At last, our uncle is ready to bend that proud neck!"

"I think not," said Curufin. He stepped forward, straightening as he did. A fey light was in his eyes, like the light that had always burned in Fëanor's even before the trees fell. "If Fingolfin meant to bend his neck, he would have come by daylight, with trumpets and banners and warriors clad in mail. Are we to believe that he'd send his children across the water like spies in the night, with no gift but a child's harp to woo us? Fingolfin doesn't even know they've _come_! They mean to convince _us_ to bend our necks to _him_!"

They had not yet reached the high red gate of the fortress, but Maglor drew up short at the head of the road to bar their way. With the gate's spiked arch crowning him and the fires of the watchtowers over each shoulder, Maglor appeared as terrible as Morgoth upon his black throne. "Is this true?" he asked.

Something kindled in Fingon's breast, red and hot and righteous. He raised his chin and stepped forward until Maglor no longer loomed over him. Maglor held his ground, unmoved. "If _no one_ bends, then we'll never save Maedhros."

A smile touched Maglor's eyes, but there was grief and pity in it. "Is this why you came, cousin? Because you'd hoped that he could still be saved?"

A scrape of shoe on stone, and then Turgon stood at Fingon's side. The sharp east wind caught his braids, twisted with gold like his brother's, and sent them whipping and flashing in the red light of the sentry fires. "If it were my brother held in Angband, I would gamble my life on that hope. Please, Maglor. At least hear us."

Behind them, Caranthir laughed. His laughter was the same as his brother's, hard and unyielding as stone. It was an ugly sound. "Why should we hear you, when your own father won't?"

"I hadn't thought my cousins had become a pack of cowards, to skulk behind a wall and moan that there is no hope!" cried Aredhel.

Straightaway, Curufin replied, "Then what kind of coward is your father, to skulk behind us?"

Turgon's lips skinned back from his teeth; a dire light seemed to shine from him as he clenched the strap of the harp case, as though someone had lit a lamp long cold behind his eyes. He rounded on Curufin, and for all Curufin was tall and straight, before Turgon he seemed a blade of wheat beneath a towering pine. "What kind of coward?" Turgon demanded. "The kind who led his people across the Grinding Ice! The kind who drove Morgoth's forces to the mountains with the sun at his back! The kind who never broke faith with his brother, although he was betrayed and betrayed again--not the kind of coward who burnt his stolen ships to keep his own people from fleeing--"

"We forgive you that," said Fingon. He could feel all of them slipping from him, brother and sister and cousins, and he knew not how to gather them up again. "What would you have them say, Turgon? We saw the ships burning across the sea, and we chose to go on. You can't blame them for the crossing. You can't blame them for what happened to Elenwë and Argon."

Celegorm's eyes widened. He darted a glance at Turgon, and whatever he saw there, his grip on his spear slackened. Curufin's crow-quick eyes caught that moment's compassion, though, and he cut in, "We don't want your forgiveness. We did no wrong when we burned the ships."

"Did _you_ no wrong, at least," said Caranthir. "It always grieves me to see a beautiful thing destroyed."

Then Maglor strode among them then with his arms flung wide, turning in slow arcs like a dancer. "And now we come to it," he proclaimed. "Now, let us speak of Alqualondë! Because as our good cousin Fingon tells us, we can speak of our sorrows and remedy them."

"I didn't come to lay Alqualondë at your feet," began Turgon, but Maglor howled with laughter until tears gave his eyes an animal sheen. Even his brothers drew back from him.

"How could you?" he laughed. "Your hands are as bloody as ours! How many of the Teleri did you murder, Turgon? How many times did they cling to your coat and beg you for mercy? Oh, but you steeled your heart against their screams all the same--"

"Stop it!" said Aredhel. She seized Maglor by the collar, but still he laughed like something broken. "Stop it, all of you--"

The shrill song of an arrow carved through the laughter, leaving silence in its wake.

Amras nocked a second arrow and sighted along it. This time, Fingon marked its flight. At the treeline, a black shape fell into the shadows without a cry. " _Orqui_ ," said Amras. "There was a third, but he's beneath the trees now. We may not catch him tonight."

"We'll catch him," Celegorm said grimly. "Shall we hunt together, Aredhel? There will be a spear and a bow for you, if you want them."

She let Maglor's collar go, straightening the veil where she'd pulled it askew. "I'll need a veil, too, if I'm to hunt with you. And a horse."

"Then a veil and a horse you'll have, although I can't promise you white or silver."

She swept the ledge with a condemnatory glare, then turned back to Celegorm and took his arm. "Promise me a few hours without this wretched wrangling and sniping, and I'll wear any color you name."

The two of them set off for the gate again and hailed the watchtowers. As clanging chains and pulleys working the red gates open, Fingon once more faced his cousins.

On the lake shore, they had been silent sentinels with faces of stone. Their eyes had been black and pitiless over their masks, and their cheeks graven nearly to the bone. But here, with the sentry fires close enough to give their dark hair a ruddy cast, Fingon saw that his cousins were all of them exhausted. Curufin's shoulders sloped, and Maglor's once-fine hair straggled out of a single clubbed braid. The hollows were so deep under Amras's eyes that, when the light touched his brows, Fingon could see the skull beneath. Caranthir's hands trembled at his sides.

A quiet part of him wondered how they would ever bear the rest of the war.

"I do mean to save him," said Fingon. "With you and my father at my back, if I can; alone, if I must."

The mad light had gone out of Maglor's eyes. He put a hand on Fingon's shoulder, but none could mistake the touch for a threat. His hand was broad and warm and steadying, and Fingon found himself leaning into it.

When Maglor spoke again, his voice was gentler. "I don't believe that he can be saved. I don't know if anything remains of him. But I do believe that you want to save him, and for that, you deserved better of us."

Caranthir nodded once, as though Maglor had given him a charge. "If you row back tonight, we will not hinder you," he said, "but the fog is thickening on the lake, and Amras has already shot two _orqui_ tonight. If you have need of a bed until the sun rises, we can offer that." Again, Fingon heard the roughness in his voice, and he remembered that it had been a sweeter voice in Valinor. He wondered if the treacherous fog in the lowlands had stolen that, as well.

"I thank you for your offer, but my daughter will worry if I'm not there in the morning," said Turgon. He bowed before his cousins and, without waiting for their answer, he started down the hill again.

Fingon watched him go, then looked back toward the arch through which Celegorm and Aredhel had gone. As he looked between the red gate and the shining lake, he knew that his heart could be content with neither path.

"Someone should see that he reaches his boat," said Maglor, when Fingon did not stir himself.

"I will," said Amras. "Will you walk down with me, Fingon?"

Fingon looked once more around the narrow ledge at the head of the long descent, from Maglor in his unspeakable despair to Caranthir with his shaking hands. "I will," he agreed. "Farewell, cousins. I'll soon see you again."

As each one clasped his hand in parting, though, the same quiet part of him knew that it would not be so.

Amras did not speak as they descended the hill, not even when they overtook Turgon and matched pace with him. He held a third arrow alongside his bow, but now Fingon took comfort in his readiness.

At the foot of the hill, the trees closed in again in jagged ranks. Among them lay low banks of fog, so thick that the earth beneath could not be seen. Here was the poisonous air that Caranthir had promised, rolling in heavy coils across Mithrim's still surface. Suddenly Fingon longed for a veil like his cousins', if only so that he could wrap it around Turgon's dear face. The way across the lake was long and dreary, and Turgon would have no one to share his journey.

When they reached the strand, Turgon turned to his brother and pressed Finrod's bone harp into his hands. "I know that you mean to stay and press your suit," he said, "and although I think you'll bring yourself to grief here, I think you'd grieve as much on our shore as on theirs. This harp has soothed darker sorrows than these; it may do so again."

"I'll remember what this gift is worth," promised Fingon. "Goodbye--I'll return when I can."

"When you're ready." Then Turgon kissed his cheek and bent to push their little craft across the rocky shore, to where reeds waded in the black water. Turgon stepped into the boat and took up one pair of oars while Fingon heaved his shoulder against the prow. Together, with arm and oar, they forced the boat past the shallows. When the boat floated free at last, Turgon guided it in a lazy half-circle and then struck off for the distant lights of their father's camp.

His rough-edged cough still echoed across the valley long after he had vanished from view.

Fingon turned away from the lake. Amras stood waiting for him at the edge of the wood. "You don't plan to climb that hill again," he said, so low that Fingon could scarcely hear him through the muffling veil.

"I don't," Fingon answered. "What an army cannot do, perhaps one alone can."

At that Amras drew a second veil from his belt, the twin of the one he wore. He wrapped it with great care around Fingon's mouth and nose and pinned it to his thick hair with a clasp of silver. "Don't take the old road--the _orqui_ watch it. Follow the lake shore to the east, and when the lake ends, keep to the river. There is a pass across the mountains that you may remember; you crossed it in your father's vanguard. From there, you must cross Ard-galen. Look to the sky if you lose your way. Even in a storm, the sky is always blackest over Thangorodrim."

Then Amras offered his bow. When Fingon stared at it uncomprehending, he folded Fingon's hand over the polished wood. "Always keep one arrow in hand if your bow is strung," Amras said. Alongside the bow, he slid a single white-fletched arrow, then he hooked the quiver to Fingon's belt and fixed a leather cover over the arrows.

"I don't understand," Fingon managed. "Why are you ..."

"They told me that he couldn't be saved," said Amras. His voice was as calm and still as Mithrim's mirrored face. "They told me that I would only burn with him. And so I stood on the shore at Losgar and watched as my brother died in a fire of my own making. Tonight, I heard the same song--is it so strange that I should be tired of hearing it?"

It was the first time since Fingon had reached Middle-earth that anyone had dared to say aloud that Amrod was dead. He had thought his peace long since made with that knowledge, but even so, the confession struck him nearly. Here was a grief untended, and its roots were deep. "I'm sorry," said Fingon. Even to his own ears, his voice sounded small and thin.

"Don't be sorry. Bring Maedhros back." Then Amras, too, turned away, to begin the long walk up to the fortress on the hill.

Between the lake and the hillside road lay a middle way, albeit one thick with mist. Fingon stood for long moments upon the shore, aware that with a shout he could still call Amras or Turgon back.

Over the Mountains of Shadow came a single blast on a hunting horn. The sound was at once sweet and terrible, like the roar of thunder from a cloudless sky. Each echo sent a shiver of delight through Fingon, until he thought he must burst into song in answer.

Amras had been right--there was no horn like it in all the world, and never would be again.

With the Valoróma's wild music still ringing in his ears, Fingon stepped into the shadow of the trees.

* * *

The northern banks of Mithrim stretched on into darkness, drear and stony. Here, trees bent down to dip their limbs in the lake, and everything the water touched was black and withered. Dank sedges and fallen boughs jutted from the water like reaching hands. Among the sedge, there nested hidden birds that woke into flight when Fingon passed. Their mottled wings clattered softly as they fled, until their bodies were swallowed by the fog.

By moonlight, even the evil mists of Angband had a queer beauty to them. They crept between the trees in furls and fingers, and settled like snow in every sheltered dell. To trust that soft-edged beauty, though, was to court death. As he passed one of the countless brooks that fed great Mithrim, Fingon's eyes strayed to a hollow among the black stones. There, a shard of moonlight pierced the overhanging boughs and the thick mist, illuminating a little heap of bones. Atop the piled remains lay the empty-eyed skull of a hare.

Fingon stood still for a moment, peering into the darkness and daring come no closer, for fear of breathing in the foul air. If he walked into that valley, Fingon knew, even his veil would not save him. 

When he passed through a curtain of fog, it clung wetly to his skin. Even through the veil, the fog smelled of char and brimstone.

That all-pervading vapor rolled in sheets across the lake, until even Fingon's elven eyes could no longer make out the lamps of his father's camp. He wondered whether he would be granted a last view of those lamps before he left the lake behind--he would have liked to wish his father farewell, even if only in his heart. _Then you should have opened your heart to him before you crossed the lake,_ he told himself, as though one sadness could drive out another. _Could you have stood before him and said farewell, knowing how it would gut him if you never returned? And now a heavy doom lies upon your head. He will weep for you yet._

The lake lapped gently against the shore; where the water broke upon the rocks, it shone. Grief lay in his throat like a stone that he could not swallow.

Cruel or kind, he had made his choice. He would go on.

The further east he went, the steeper grew Mithrim's banks. At last, the stony shore fell away, and a cliff of bald stone reared up along the lake. Here, the winds from Ered Wethrin had stunted and scoured the trees, leaving none but the hardiest of twisted evergreens clinging to the cliff face. Further inland, Hithlum's sprawling forests stretched on to the feet of the mountains.

With the precipice yawning on one hand and the forest on the other, Fingon slipped in among the trees. He had not his sister's woodcraft, but he trusted Oromë Aldaron to guard his steps more than he trusted his footing on those treacherous stones. If he kept the lake in sight, he would not lose his way.

By now, dawn was edging the sky in blue, although the stars still lay above him in rivers of silver. Birds sang sweet-voiced in the towering trees, echoing and reprising each other, until their voices doubled and redoubled in a music like the world being created. At that glad sound, an answering joy rose in Fingon's breast, like the first swelling breath of a new song. As the sun shrugged free of the horizon, the mists on the lake were limned with gold, and every leaf and fern became green again.

Unbidden, he thought of Maedhros laughing in the light of Laurelin.

 _I don't know if anything remains of him,_ Maglor had said, and perhaps the laughing boy he'd loved was indeed beyond recovering. If he had not fallen in the sack of Alqualondë, he must surely have perished when he put the stolen swan ships to the torch. In those bloody broils, though, none who came from Tirion had been spared. The Fingon who'd dwelt in Valinor had met his end when he'd murdered his kinsmen, and he would not come again, not even when his body fell at last and Mandos clothed his spirit in new flesh.

Against his crimes, it seemed small and selfish to say that a love conceived in Valinor lived in Fingon still--but live it did, as the light of Laurelin lived within the Silmarilli. Even now, as the sun rose red and golden, that ember quickened to an aching flame within him.

Still the birds called out from tree to tree, and still the sun cast its rays across the swaying ferns. The long night had ended. Some hope remained, a goad sharper-edged but sweeter than despair.

Fingon dared the cliff's edge to take his bearings, and there he found that he had traveled many leagues in the darkness. The lowlands with their dreary sedges were well behind him. On both sides of Mithrim now rose the first steeps of Ered Wethrin, with their green-mantled shoulders untouched by the mists that choked the valleys.

At the sight of those peaks, he burned to put Hithlum behind him. The far side of the mountains lay less than a day's journey to the east, if he did not rest or slow. His limbs were not yet weary, and the foothills seemed a fair country for a traveler afoot.

Now Fingon shouldered Amras's bow and broke into a run. Moss and ferns carpeted the ground beneath him and softened each light step. He kept to the ridgelines where he could, descending into a valley only when he could no longer hear the busy rush of the river that fed Mithrim.

He glimpsed the river now and then through the trees, here running swift over a bed of broken stones, there cascading over a precipice in a glittering white spray. Its song was hushed but sweet, the merest echo of Helcar's dolorous waves.

When the sun was high overhead, Fingon stopped to rest upon the riverbank. In the spot that Fingon had chosen, the river swept out in a broad, slow-moving bend. Deep-rooted trees stretched over the shallows, and beneath their shadows darted quick grey fish that knew no fear of Elves. For a moment, Fingon let himself dream of spearing one of those curious fish with an arrow, but he knew that he dared not light a fire to cook his catch. Instead, he broke his fast with berries and tough, sharp-tasting cresses still wet from the river.

By now, the long march was beginning to tell. The muscles in his legs felt tight as harp-strings. Where Amras's veil lay across the bridge of his nose, it had chafed a raw line that flared into pain whenever the wind shifted.

Above him and to the north, though, Fingon sighted the pass where his father had crossed Ered Wethrin, and he would not permit himself to rest until he had the mountains at his back.

Beyond the river bend, the way was harder. The foothills gave way to treacherous steeps of flaking grey stone, so brittle that even Fingon's light feet left cracks when he passed. More than once, he came across places where the hillsides had sheared away, leaving only heaps of broken rock on which black serpents sunned themselves. Fingon had no horror of serpents, but even so, he placed his feet with greater care.

He soon had cause to thank those lurking serpents--for, as he glanced warily into the shadow of a rocky overhang, he saw not the gleam of scales but a flash of sun on sword.

His breath caught in his throat. With all stealth, Fingon paced back to the edge of the overhang so that he would not make a shadow against the sunlit wood. From this vantage, he gazed upon the creatures hidden beneath that lip of stone.

Four _orqui_ lay sleeping in the deepest recesses of the small cavern, their weapons close at hand. Even in repose, their faces were terrible to behold. They had blackened their features with ash and grease, the better to conceal themselves by darkness, and under that foul coating Fingon could make out little but a proud brow or the dull gleam of horn and tusk. Three of the _orqui_ still wore vests of black ring mail, but one had stripped to the waist, and he lay with his clawed hands folded over his chest. Tattoos wound in whorls over his pallid skin; Fingon could not help seeing the black clouds of Thangorodrim drawn there.

The _orqui_ who had met Fingolfin's forces in the howling waste of Lammoth had not blackened their faces. Instead, they had caked their long hair with white clay and greased their armor with chalk-laced fat, until not even the moonlight had discovered them amid the snowbanks. Then, when the Elves were beyond hope of flight, the _orqui_ had sprung from the snow and screamed with a thousand mouths. Their dreadful eyes had been black and golden, and their blood like pitch on the ice.

Almost without thought, Fingon's hand went to the bow that Amras had given him. He had arrows enough for all of the _orqui_ , and at this range, he could not fail to strike. _They did not spare my brother, when he went among them like a whirlwind,_ he thought. _They cut him to pieces, and then they came for the rest of us._

For long moments he stood there with his fingers closed on the sun-warmed wood, and he could not make himself draw the bow. It was not mercy that stayed his hand; he felt no pity for them. Nor was it caution, although he knew full well that the least gasp or cry from their comrades might rouse the remaining _orqui_ \--and then they would surely slay him or flee to betray his approach.

Perhaps it was honor that saw sleeping foes and could not strike. Fingon would have liked to believe that it was honor.

If he could not kill the _orqui_ , he would need to find another route. He settled the bow again at his back and stole away from the campsite, taking care to leave no trail behind him.

What stealth he possessed, though, would avail him little when he came to the road.

Years ago, Fingolfin's forces had descended from the mountains like a mighty river, carving a channel between Angband and Hithlum that later hands had fashioned into a road. Their enemy had remained behind them, secure in his fastness, but even so the retreat had felt like a victory procession. In those days, the sun had been new, and the earth had quickened and bloomed beneath their marching feet. Fingolfin's host had trooped over the saddle between the peaks with smiling eyes and songs on their lips, a long train of blue banners and gleaming silver mail.

On the backbone of the mountains, Fingon had drawn his horse aside from the column so that he could watch his people passing. Though chill winds from the east still pursued them, on that day, the air had carried a scent so unlike the reek of Thangorodrim that Fingon's eyes had grown wet with tears. In the wake of the rearguard had risen a dense carpet of wildflowers, white and countless as the stars.

A few of those flowers still bloomed, on peaks and ledges where the air was sweeter. Between the forest and the road, though, lay a barren land choked with brush and bones.

By now the sun cast a copper light over the mountains, staining Morgoth's watchtowers the brown-red of old blood. He knew that he must pass those towers by in daylight if he had any hope of avoiding capture, for by night, the _orqui_ 's eyes were sharper than his own.

He did not run, although his heart was pounding. The _orqui_ would be watching for an Elf who ran. Instead, he made himself step onto the empty road and walk down the very center, as though he had no reason to fear.

The black paving stones had soaked up the day's heat, and now they bled warmth like the coals of a dying fire. Scattered grasses lay between the stones, burnt brown by the punishing sun; they crackled beneath Fingon's feet. _It will be hotter in Thangorodrim,_ he told himself as he stepped into the shadow of the watchtower. Even by daylight, the tower seemed an evil thing, a knife wrought of rough-hewn black stone that glittered redly in the sunset. Atop the tower, narrow windows pierced the walls on every side.

If the _orqui_ were watching, they must surely have seen him. Still he crept past the tower, until its black face lay at his back. He hardly dared breathe. Dread awakened every nerve into an agony of vigilance: the sun seemed too bright, the soft crunch of grass as loud as breaking bones. At every moment, Fingon expected to wake unfleshed in the Halls of Mandos.

No arrow pierced his back. No horn sounded a warning.

With slow and patient steps, Fingon passed over the saddle between the peaks and into the valley beyond.

Before him stretched the vast green plains of Ard-galen. In those treeless lands, he would find little cover from Morgoth's agents; he might travel by day and hope to avoid the _orqui_ , but he did not imagine that they would spare him if they came across him asleep. He would have to move after night fell, as his enemies did, and hope that their dread of sunlight would guard his rest.

He had not truly rested in two days, and as the sun set over distant Thangorodrim, he knew that he still had far to go.

* * *

Fingon passed three long, cold nights among Ard-galen's grasses, flitting like a wight from hill to sheltering hill. But for those hills, Ard-galen offered little cover. At first there had been tree-lined streams tracking down from the mountains, but the sandy earth soon swallowed them up. Seeking other concealment, Fingon had once sought out a stand of thorny scrub, but beneath it lay such a jumble of bones and ivory that he did not linger to see what beast made its lair there.

He learned to track Thangorodrim's exhalations as though they were a lover's breath. When a gout of black smoke hid the moon, he tightened the veil over his mouth and ran until every shuddering breath made his chest ache.

Even dawn brought no comfort. Here, the sky was so thick with foul fumes that even the sun gleamed red, and green Ard-galen appeared black beneath its light. Fingon's people slept little, but during those days he scarcely closed his eyes. Instead he lay face-up on a low hill, below the line of the grass, and he practiced drawing the bow until it felt like a part of his arm.

The waiting wore on him far more than thirst or sleeplessness. He dreaded discovery until he came almost to long for it; his unquiet mind ranged over the plains and peopled them with ashen-faced foes. More than once he heard the tramp of feet in the next valley as dusk drew down, and his heart clenched like a fist. At those times, he crouched in his hiding place and fitted arrow to bow, prepared to sell his life dearly. Each time, though, the patrol passed him by unseen, and each time he wondered whether he had dreamed them.

The third night brought him close enough to the gates of Angband that he could count the sentries on the walls. The small black shapes must be _orqui_ , he thought; the moon glanced from their armor and the dull points of their spears. Among them, though, moved hulking Balrogs with skin of ash and flame.

The great gates were closed. Although Fingon studied every ell of them until his eyes burned with the strain, he could discover no crack or seam. Perhaps the gates had not opened since before Fingolfin's forces struck them.

He could not slip past the Balrogs as easily as he had evaded the _orqui_ , nor could he batter down the black gates. If some other, ill-guarded passage led into that grim keep, it was hidden from his sight.

No way in! He very nearly laughed, and indeed he felt that mad sound welling in his throat--but he knew that if he let himself laugh, he would laugh until the _orqui_ came to claim him. That way lay only madness and despair.

 _No_ , he thought. _I did not come all this way to be turned back by a locked door._

Fingon looked up from those swarming gates to the smoke-shrouded heights of Thangorodrim, and he measured them against the mountains that he had already crossed. Those slopes were wicked, to be sure; their sides were steep, and tongues of flame issued from every fissure and cleft in the black stone. Faced with these three monstrous peaks, Fingon remembered Ered Wethrin's fern-clad foothills with a pang of longing.

Still, tall and terrible though the mountains were, they could not be thrice the height of the Mountains of Shadow. And even were they ten times as high, he would not have to climb to their ever-glowing peaks--only to a better vantage from which to espy a secret entrance.

Even as he lay considering his approach, the sun rose to bathe the world in blood-red light. Beyond the gates, someone beat a drum, and to Fingon's ears the low and rolling notes seemed the mountain's own heartbeat. The _orqui_ left their posts in ordered ranks, leaving only the Balrogs to stand sentinel over the gates.

He did not think they saw him as he rose, nor marked his passage as he crossed the plains to approach from the east.

Even the lowest slopes tested him sorely. Here, black stone had melted and flowed in glassy whorls, and although a thin layer of ash covered the ground, the stone beneath was often so smooth that his feet found no purchase. Where heat or malice had broken the rock into flinders, the shards were sharp as sorrow. Once, Fingon cut himself upon them and felt no pain until he saw that his hand ran red with blood. He tore fabric from his coat and bound his palms securely, but still he feared that he had left an easy trail for Morgoth's coursers.

As he fixed the knot in place, his spirit faltered, and he wondered if he might not turn around and find another way. But as he looked across the plains, he saw that he had already gained a height that might shame Hithlum's mountains. If he turned around now, and found no better path, then he would have to make the ascent again--and by then, night would surely have fallen.

There was no way but forward. He steeled himself, and went on.

After an eternity of careful climbing, of gaining a finger of ground only to slide back three hard-won paces, at last Fingon reached a ridge of rough earth. Around it, two rivers of black glass had flowed and frozen, but this promontory lay clear, and it would be his road. He kept to the ridgeline until it grew too steep for him climb, and then with great regret he left it behind.

The land here lay in deep folds, as though a mighty hand had seized the stone and crushed it. Where a crevice opened Thangorodrim's flank, Fingon descended in the hope of finding a cave--but in some he found only slumbering bats, and in others, steaming pools of water that smelled of rot and ash.

Again and again, he said a silent thanks to Amras for his gifts. Even with the veil to protect him from the worst of the noisome air, Fingon's throat was raw as a wound, and he had begun to cough so hard and often that he no longer bothered to stifle the sound of it. Without the veil, he knew that he would have perished long ago.

Angband's gates were far below him, now. The red sun had already sunk behind the peaks. Weary beyond recounting, coughing until he felt his ribs would break, Fingon sank down upon a ledge.

He would find no passage here. That Morgoth's agents had their secret ways, Fingon did not doubt, but those ways were hidden from him, and he would surely be caught before he found them. Perhaps the _orqui_ even now awaited him at the foot of the mountain--for Fingon was not proud enough to imagine that he had come unto Angband itself without detection. Morgoth knew his face and family, and he must know what a fine hostage Fingon would make.

The thought was not now as dreadful as it had seemed, when he had skulked among the hills of Ard-galen. At least he would be sure of seeing Maedhros again. Together, they might devise a plan for escape where each alone had failed.

It was not despair that made him take Finrod's bone harp from the case and lay it across his lap, although there was something of desperation in it. Instead, as he found the silver fish scale and picked out a melody, hope lit him from within until he thought he must shine like a beacon.

At first he played the songs of crossing, those which had cheered the exiles upon the icy back of the Helcaraxë. In the harp's clear voice, he played the blue gleam of ice at the water's edge, and the warm west wind speeding them on to distant shores; he played the dream of Middle-earth with her broad trees and her dells awash in flowers. So, too, did he play the laments for those who had fallen--for Elenwë who had loved the stars, and for Argon never-conquered. Although his throat was too rough for song, he played the names of Varda's stars, and even as he did, he looked up to the sky and saw them shining through the smoke.

A cool wind from Ered Wethrin had risen as he played. By the time he had reached the last of his crossing songs, the air was sweeter, and all dread had left him. He found that he could sing, and so he sang of Tirion white and golden, and of lovers beneath the mingled lights of the two trees.

And from on high there came an answering song.

Fingon's hands stilled on the harp. He knew that voice, although it had grown harsh as a raven's with ill use and foul air. Long ago, he had heard it laughing in the light of Laurelin.

His heart gave a giddy lurch, and then he was on his feet and scrambling up the ridge in search of a vantage. The way was so steep that he had to cling to the rock face with fingers and toes, but in his haste he forgot his weariness, and he fairly flew up the craggy stone. "Maedhros!" he called, then with mounting gladness, "Maedhros, I'm here!"

When he gained the top of the ridge at last, though, he saw that his hope had been folly, and joy died in his breast.

He had come to the foot of a precipice of black glass, as smooth and featureless as a mirror. Far above him, bolted to the mountainside with a shackle of steel, hung what once had been Maedhros the tall.

He was more corpse than living creature, a mere skeleton sheeted in ash and skin. His hair fell in wind-raddled ropes to his ankles, and no sign remained that it had once been red.

Yet still he sang, until the song had ended. And when Fingon tilted his face up toward the sky, he saw Maedhros smile.

"Old friend," he called down in a voice like rusted iron. The song had cost him dearly, though, and it was many breaths before he could speak again. "I'm glad it was you. Now, make an end of me."

"I came to save you." But when Fingon faced the mirrored cliff, he could not see how. Not even a spider could have found a foothold there. He cast about for a path to the slopes beyond, but all was fire and broken glass. In the wildness of his grief, Fingon seized a stone from near his feet and drove it against the cliff, seeking to carve a handhold. If he could drag himself to the summit on bleeding fingers, he would do it gladly--but although his stone broke to fragments in his hand, the glassy cliff remained unmarked.

"Please," said Maedhros, and now his voice was wretched with longing. "Shoot me. There is no other way."

This, then, was why Morgoth had not hindered his passage. Maglor had spoken truly: nothing remained to be saved.

One last office, Fingon could do for Maedhros. He took the bow from his shoulder, then bent it and fastened the string. Fitting a white-fletched arrow to the bowstring, he sighted and drew.

For long moments he stood, gazing up at the proud wreck of his dearest friend, and he could not make himself let go. His bandaged hands trembled. He blinked back tears, but still they burned unshed. "Oromë, guide my arrow, and grant him a swift and easy death," whispered Fingon--

\--and then he heard hoofbeats, ringing like bells upon the mountainside. A shadow passed between him and the moon. Reflected in the glassy cliff, Fingon seemed to see a vast black rider on a horse of bone, with the severed heads of Elves bound to his saddle by their hair.

At once, the grief in Fingon's heart turned to rage. How dare Morgoth's creatures come to gloat! A part of him was glad to have some evil thing to fight, after so long startling at shadows. Those endless, fearful days of waiting all bled into a single fierce scream as Fingon whirled on the intruder. His arrow flew true.

The rider's hand snapped up, swifter than thought, and snatched the arrow from the air. He studied the fletching in silence, then cast the bolt aside and raised his eyes to meet Fingon's. Only then did Fingon behold the stern face of Oromë Aldaron, who looked upon him with sorrow and wonder.

Slowly, Fingon lowered his bow. "Please forgive me, Aldaron."

"You are forgiven. At least your aim was true." The lord of the forests was birch-tall and slender, clad in furs and leathers; red leaves were in his hair. On his hip he bore the Valoróma, that great beast's horn chased with copper and gold, whose voice shattered the stillness with the sound of thunder. He carried a spear of blackened ash, with four javelins worn in readiness at his back and a bloodstained knife at his waist. At his saddle hung the heads of two _orqui_. Black blood still dripped from their necks.

Oromë's eyes were keen and golden. "I will guide your arrow, if you wish it," he said, "but it will not spare your friend."

"If I kill him, he'll find his way to the Halls of Mandos--"

"Even there, his oath would bind him. Do you not think I could unshackle him, if I wished to? I am Vala. But even I cannot release him from his oath." Oromë slid from his horse's back. When he had crested the ridge, he had been a giant upon a towering steed, but as he approached the base of the cliff, he stood no taller than Fingon. His radiant face grew dim, until he might have been no more than an Elf who still bore the light of the trees in his eyes.

This close, Fingon could not help but see the scars crossing Oromë's skin.

"His oath may still be accomplished," said Fingon. "Melkor's forces are small and cowardly. There's still hope--"

"There is no hope in Fëanor's oath! That oath was forged in the flames of Alqualondë!" In a sudden flash of rage, Oromë drew a javelin and cast it at the black glass. It struck with a thunderclap; a spiderweb of cracks appeared in the cliff face.

Perhaps Fingon ought to have been afraid. A part of him was, and deeply afraid, for the javelin still stood quivering in the cliff face with its point buried in the broken stone. But in Oromë's golden eyes, there was a bottomless sadness that roused his compassion more than his fear. Fingon reached out to lay a hand on Oromë's shoulder, in the wolf's fur of his mantle. "Is there no hope at all?"

The lord of the forests took Fingon's offered hand and clasped it in his own. His palm was warm and rough all over with calluses. It felt like a hand that could no longer remember what it was, without a spear in it. "That is a heavy question, Elda. You know the doom that lies on all your race."

"You've been longer at war than any of us. You must know if there's some chance, however slim."

Oromë's smile was a knife. "You ask me if there is a chance. You come late to the battlefield, laughing like Tulkas, with your blue and silver banners and your high red gates. Your cousin swears an oath in passion and then carves it on his kin. Your heart swells with the bloody song of it, so you follow him. You followed him to Alqualondë, and now to Thangorodrim. Next you will follow him to your doom. I see no chance in that."

 _How many times did they cling to your coat and beg you for mercy? But you steeled your heart against their screams all the same._ Shame coursed through Fingon, hot and bright. He would have pulled away, but Oromë held him fast. "Do not turn from me," he said. "I see what lies ahead for you because I have watched it happen a thousand, thousand times. I have ridden the line since before light was divided from shadow. Since before Yavanna raised the trees--before the lamps that came before the trees. I have seen the way Melkor warps the noblest creatures into weapons. _I knew them when they were noble._ "

He looked to Nahar, and to the heads that hung from his saddle. When Fingon followed his gaze, Oromë nodded once. "Yes. Your people once called them _uruk_. Now it is _orqui_. But before that, they were the _quendi_ , and they were fair and fey and proud. They, too, are your kin, as near as the sons of Fëanor."

"But Morgoth corrupted them."

"He warped their bodies. He taught them to love their own power. The rest, they did gladly to themselves." Oromë looked up to Maedhros, far above them. If he had heard them talking, Maedhros gave no sign. His bright eyes were closed, in sleep or misery. His long limbs hung slack. More than anything, Fingon longed to take his old friend in his arms again and to bear him away.

He could not make himself draw his bow again, not though Maedhros begged him for death.

When at last Fingon looked down, Oromë's eyes were still fixed on Maedhros as though he were a guiding star. "I fear what the Noldor will become in their lust for the Silmarilli," said Oromë, barely louder than the failing wind. "I see the long trail of ashes that already lies behind you, and I wonder when it will be Celegorm's head hanging from my saddle."

 _Or Turgon's, or Aredhel's._ Fingon's gaze fell upon his hand, still clasped in Oromë's. He pressed that too-mortal hand once, then let his arm fall to his side. "A Vala didn't ride across Ard-galen to grieve what could not be changed," he said. "You haven't answered me. Is there no hope?"

Oromë drew away and swung into his saddle. The moon had risen at his back, bright as bone, and with its light behind him he seemed no more than a vast shadow edged in silver. Fingon could nearly see stars through his skin. "There is no hope in the Silmarilli. So long as they remain in this world, there will be no hope for your kin. But there is still hope, Elda. You did not walk to Thangorodrim for nothing."

"But can I save him?"

The lord of the forests raised his spear in a salute. "You can save _all_ of them."

Then with a nudge to his horse's flank he went streaming down the mountainside, swift as a storm from the east. Fingon watched him go until even snow-white Nahar vanished into the darkling plains.

Where Nahar had stood, a single white flower now bloomed in a cleft between the stones. It was the first thing Fingon had seen growing upon the barren slopes of Thangorodrim.

He looked once more upon Maedhros, and found that his eyes were open. They glittered like jewels in the moonlight.

Maedhros would not thank him for what he had to do, but Fingon saw no other way. While the Silmarilli remained in the world, the oath would bind Maedhros and all of his brothers, and they would know no rest or peace but the void. If the sons of Fëanor were to be saved, then the Silmarilli must be destroyed.

It would be a heavy deed to accomplish, with only a bow and a song.

"I'll come back for you--I swear it," Fingon called. Maedhros made no answer.

"I love you," he said, but still Maedhros did not answer.

The climb back down the mountain was long, and all the way, he felt those hard eyes on his back.


End file.
